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New SCAD lecture hall prompts parking angst

Richard Burkhart/Savannah Morning NewsThe Savannah College of Art and Design is planning on converting this building at 23 East Charlton St. into a classroom building.

Richard Burkhart/Savannah Morning News The Savannah College of Art and Design is planning on converting this building at 23 East Charlton St. into a classroom building.

The Savannah College of Art and Design is growing in the historic district’s core again after a decade of focusing on adding facilities along downtown’s edges.

Many of the college’s soon-to-be new neighbors aren’t welcoming them back warmly, however.

SCAD recently bought the three-story brick office building at the corner of Charlton and Drayton streets and is converting it into classroom space. Haymans Hall will be home to the college’s illustration programs and serve 307 students and 16 faculty and staff members when it opens this September.

Where those students and employees will park is causing consternation among nearby residents and business owners.

“Residents are having increasing difficulty finding place to park, and this project has the potential to compound that,” said Hank Reed, who lives three blocks from the new classroom building and is the president of the Downtown Neighborhood Association.

The building predates the city of Savannah’s zoning ordinance and has only 32 parking spaces onsite. SCAD has secured another 30 spots nearby — 12 located across Drayton Street in a surface parking lot owned by the Colonial Dames of America and 18 more in the parking garage at the corner of Liberty and Whitaker streets.

But the college will need a remote parking variance to count the parking garage spots toward the total required under the city’s zoning ordinance. The garage is located 850 feet from Haymans Hall, beyond the 150-foot limit cited in the ordinance.

A SCAD representative will petition the Zoning Board of Appeals today for the variance.

The meeting starts at 10 a.m. at the Chatham County-Savannah Metropolitan Planning Commission offices on State St.

Parking nightmare ahead?

Neighbors fear a repeat of the parking issues created five years ago by SCAD’s purchase and conversion of the former Richard Arnold High School into a classroom building.

Student vehicles crowded the on-street parking near Arnold Hall, located next door to the Bull Street Library in the Victorian District, to the point a task force formed and developed a parking plan for the area.

Haymans is one-tenth the size of Arnold Hall, an 88,000-square-foot facility that serves 3,000 students. And Haymans’ downtown location and close proximity to student homes and residence halls offset those concerns, SCAD officials said.

“Central to the continued success and vitality of SCAD is its harmony with historic Savannah,” Martin Smith, SCAD’s executive director of design and new construction, wrote in an email. “Walkability, ample bicycle parking and a focus on the popular university-funded bus system will continue to be a core strategy for SCAD’s mobility management.”

Neighbors acknowledge many students will be able to walk, bike or skateboard to Haymans Hall. But their experience with students visiting other SCAD buildings nearby is those co-eds drive to class in inclement weather or when they have an appointment elsewhere before or after class.

Esther Shaver, owner of E Shaver Bookseller, fears the impact a dearth of parking will have on her business and others. The bookstore is located around the corner from Haymans Hall on Madison Square.

“It could destroy everybody’s business,” Shaver said. “Those who visit the Andrew Low House and the Cathedral and the Chatham Club at the Hilton, they all have to park on the street. It’s already crowded. There are only so many spots.”

Exercising caution

Compounding the situation is the uncertainty over the off-street parking spaces.

The 12 spots SCAD has secured in the Colonial Dames surface lot are on an annual lease.

Plus, the Colonial Dames hopes to develop the lot once it pays off the loan on the property, which is approximately five years away, according to Connie Williams, president of the Colonial Dames of American in the state of Georgia.

SCAD intends to install several bike racks around Haymans Hall. Neighbors suspect those racks will displace several of the off-street spaces.

The Downtown Neighborhood Association opposes SCAD’s variance request and plans to put forth its own proposal during the Zoning Board of Appeals meeting. Their plan is that SCAD require all Haymans Hall staff members to park off-site and use the college’s shuttle service to get to work, freeing up the off-street parking for students.

“We want to make everybody as happy as possible,” Reed said.

SCAD’s petition already calls for Haymans Hall staff to park in the Liberty Street garage to allow students to utilize the 44 on-site and Colonial Dames lot spaces.

The building’s previous tenants, EMC Engineering Services, utilized the onsite parking, as well as a surface lot at Drayton and Jones streets for its 40 to 50 employees. EMC owned and occupied the building for 30 years before relocating to Chatham Center earlier this year.